fiesta, forever...

A few snap shots of  my fiesta, forever... from a freezing outdoor photoshoot. The quilt is big, 64" * 80" using quilters dream poly batting and a fun alexander henry print as a back. Not easy to capture in good light this time of the year.  More lively in real life than in these pictures, I'd say...

This has been a long term scrappy project, based on the lovely pattern scrapper's delight from the book sunday morning quilts. It is a mix of blocks with very random strips of colors, and blocks with more coordinated colors. As I was putting this wip up on my design wall after finishing ziggy stardust (previous post), the inspiration hit to try a similar layout. 

Some of these blocks have had several different tryouts for other layouts over time, some are freshly made for this one. A lucky find of light blue solid from stash pulled it all together. The back has been waiting patiently in stash, too. It's a mexican themed dia del morte, fun print. (There's a little showing in the middle picture, above.) As much as I would like this one quilted on a long arm, I decided to try it myself. ( The back was not big enough for the extra inches needed to attach it to the long arm.) So, using all the different colors of thread to quilt the different colored strips I took my time and quilted it over several days, a few hours at a time. 

Happy with the result. The vivid colors complement the "fastelaven" (norwegian custom similar to carnival season) and easter season both. A good dose of colors are just what I need this time of year.

; )

wordless wednesday wip

something else on a saturday

Once in a while it's good to do a bit of stash busting. Last summer I made a series of 7 triangle quilts. This summer I got inspiration from a quilter friend, Astrid and her lovely "chenille" pillow and throw. Probably not proper to call this a quilt, it's 8 layers of fabric that's stitched together and then cut through 7 of the eight layers. A true stash buster if you ever saw one! 

So, my drawer of brown Kaffe Fassett, leftover Cherrywood, a few homespuns and more, was turned into this 6 pounds throw. Yes, 6 pounds or 2.7 kg of fabric. That made some space in the fabric storage. 

Next up was the pastel blue with a bit of added orange.  A smaller size, it weights 4.5 pounds or 2.0 kg of fabric. Both using 12.5 " squares, the brown throw measures 60" by 60" and the light blue is 48" by 60". 

I had my first go at machine stitching the binding onto these. So happy to have my heavy duty Pfaff sewing machine for this job. Not all machines will tackle sewing through 16 layers of fabric!

Part of the process is washing and tumble drying the throw. Texture improves with every wash and dry. Softer with use...

Stash busting mission of 2013 completed. A sore thumb from cutting all the slits. And more room for rummaging through the remaining stash. Happy with the result, I might use this technique to make a few hot pads for christmas presents this year....

What's your best stash busting trick?

friday finish

Outside pictures taken earlier this week of my finished quilt sunny, measuring 60" by 75". 

It's machine quilted in the ditch and hand quilted with perle cotton 16. Light and summery with the thin Hobbs Thermore polyester batting. I put the batting in the dryer for 20 minutes before basting the quilt. This made the batting soft and puffy, removing the wrinkles from being folded up and stored in the bag.  Happy with the effect, I will do that again...

The quilt is made from 2.5" strips, playfully arranged on my design wall. I blogged about making the top earlier. Mostly yellow fabric with splashes of contrasting purple makes for an easy recipe! What color is next?

; )

I am working my way through the stack of tops waiting to become quilts. The plan is to keep quilting until I get too distracted and need to start another top.  So, I'm trying to stay in quilting modus...

Happy friday and happy stitching!

wednesday wip

In the end there was no choice, I had to have a go at Katy Jones popular pattern "scrap vomit". I think scrap archives would also be a fitting name. Seeing so many and so diverse fabric come together in the same quilt. I have included some of my oldest purchases, some of my newest, some gifted to me by friends and some swapped. 

My quilt will have 1225 simple 2.5" squares. The nifty sizzix machine with the right die comes in handy, here. But my own scrap system also heavily leans towards these cute squares. A quarter of a charm square. The end of a jelly roll. Extras from a bargello block, a 16 patch and so on. Over time they do collect. For this quilt I also had a proper look and slim down of my scraps. The ones I keep in smaller boxes, sorted by color. My scrap organizing system builds on inspiration from Bonnie K Hunter, Amanda Jean and Cheryl. So far I have been making popular patterns from several designers out of the 2.5" squares and the small scrap boxes:

Bonnie K Hunters / Gwen Marston Maverick stars ( two finished lap quilts)

Emily Ciers Scrap Hoover (top)

Jolene's Granny Square (finished quilt)

Elizabet's Tokyo Subway Map (wip / top)

Amanda Jean and Cheryl's Scrappers delight (wip) and The Missing U (wip)

and now:

Katy Jones Scrap Vomit (wip becoming a top)

A few of these wips are in a state of arrested development due to a shortage in scraps! I will consider this a success. A few years of quilting does produce quite a bit of scraps. As some of you may have noticed I happen to love the scrappy kind of quilts. And now there's room for more. I think it's time to turn to the stash and cut into some yardage and FQ, soon...

This latest adventure, my scrap vomit wip has been named emerald city. I do enjoy making it. The most difficult thing, so far, has been to choose the central cross colors. In the end I went with emerald, by pantone named color of the year 2013. 

"Symbolically, Emerald brings a sense of clarity, renewal and rejuvenation, which is important in today's complex world." quote from Pantone

A bit uncharacteristic for my taste in colors, I really love how well the emerald contrasts with the colors of all the other pieces in there. 

A scrappy greeting from me. Somewhat quiet these days on the blog. But still piecing my life together, bit by bit... Happy stitching!

cool sixteen

a show and tell with lots of pictures and a few words:

cool sixteen : 64" * 80" on hobbs thermore batting

gifted to a young man with a big smile, a big hart and a real understanding of the value of a quilt to go with the sofa...

pictures taken on a very sunny day

p.s. a great and easy pattern to play with colors. (This one uses 2.5" strips ending of with 2 8" blocks from 2 WOF strips.)

really love the colors and fabrics in this one

; )

five

My latest quilting adventure started with some beautiful field study fabric and a wish to try making Kathy Doughty's Fractured pattern using 2.5" strips WOF.

I pulled out a warm palette to complement Anna Maria Horners Field study from my stash: orange, pink, red purple and gold. Making blocks and putting them up on my design wall I decided my fabric selection didn't work out, so I put some of the blocks and ready cut strips aside. Then I finished the purple fractured top shown in picture 4.

The spare blocks from this first fractured quilt top kept calling me. I put them on my design wall and decided it was half a top worth of pretty blocks. So I pulled more fabric from stash and made the pink fractured quilt top shown in picture 2.

This second fractured top is slowly being hand quilted on wool batting and a voile backing. (see picture 3). It is softer than butter and oh so tempting to work on.... The key for me is to go slow with the hand-quilting. I have spent all my money at the chiropractors office lately. Not fun! I have to find a way to go back to spend my money on fabric instead.

The center 4 patch in the first picture are made from spare parts from the second fractured top. They were just winking at me saying "don't we look pretty? All we need is a few star points from the scrap bin."

So we are down to picture 5. The spare parts from the spare parts formed a figure of five stars. Reminding me to tell you it's been 5 years since I started this blog. Thank you all for making it such a great place to share ideas and inspiration!

Wish you all a great wednesday and hope you will have some pretty spare parts tempting you to get creative! Me, I am trying to go real slow. 5 years is not so long, I do not want to stop quilting and blogging just yet!

; )

stash buster

Sometimes we all get smitten with a lovely quilt pattern, and it starts popping up on lots of blogs. The so called scrappy trips around the world pattern have been on my to do list for quite some time. I made my first (this is so fun you would want to make more than one) last spring, and now I would like to  share the finished quilt with you.

The pattern is easy and fun and free for all over at Bonnie. Thank you Bonnie for providing so many great classic patterns! Quiltville is a true treasure throve and a great place to find inspiration.

For my first take on this pattern I set two rules:

• a limited color palette: yellow / orange / pink / purple and turquoise
• using the darker strip of each block as a diagonal

I did some stash busting on this one. You will need 2.5" strips of about 17" length. FQ will work nicely. Putting the colors together for each block was great fun. And so was seeing how fast it grows on the design wall...

My scrappy trips around the world finished at 60" by 72", long-arm quilted on hobbs thermore polyester batting. It is to be gifted later this spring to somebody special.

It is a fun quilt to make and can be a great stash buster. I would like a halloween one, a christmas one, maybe use those pretty Tula Pink FQs in one, or my precious japanese fabric or maybe dive into my favorite Denyse Schmidt...

sometimes it is hard to stop at just one. You just have to believe me   ; )

We are having a mild and wet start of 2013. The first day of the year was spent visiting the doctor as I am completely knocked out by the flu. Hopefully that will pass quickly, and I can dust off my sewing machine. Not sewing is not good for my soul. 

Wish you all a great thursday!

twelve

twelve snowmen in check

and twelve birds in the air

are my way of celebrating this special day:

12.12.12

My 12 snowmen in check was made this spring and the pictures were taken a few weeks ago. Today was the perfect day to share it with you!

; )

This was my slash the stash of christmas themed prints. Cutting them all into 6" squares (ending up at 5.5" in the finished quilt.) It measures 66" by 77" and is long arm quilted in a pattern called poinsettia on Hobbs Thermore polyester batting. 

We are getting more snow today. So pretty and so cold... It is looking more and more like picture perfect outside. (I know it will not last, the climate here is too mild. So we have to enjoy it!)

Hope for good things coming your way on this special date!